About

Roosevelt Glacier

Artist: Chris Burnside

I’m a visual artist and graphic designer living in Seattle with my wife Audra and our daughter Ripley.
In the studio my focus is large-scale installations and cut plywood paintings. These often develop from small works on paper and photographs.
My design work began while I was working for Cheim & Read in New York, first as an archivist then as their in-house designer and photographer.

Since moving back to Seattle in 2010, I’ve been exploring ways to build on the boutique, print-based approach I learned at the gallery. I’m now working at Olson Kundig as their graphic designer and image archivist (I shoot some photos for them too).

Artist’s Statement on Roosevelt Glacier

Imagine a glacier set down in Weedin Place Park, a beacon for the neighborhood, its peak visible as you pass by on I-5. It is a symbol of the forces that shaped our region’s topography thousands of years ago. A nod to the large erratic boulder on the Weedin family’s property, which is now in Wedgewood. A tribute to Teddy Roosevelt’s environmental legacy. Visitors to the park will see a monumental form that evokes the majesty and fragility of our natural world. The glacier will be massive while simultaneously revealing the fissures and voids of its vulnerability.

This piece will be arresting at first glance, reward contemplation and will leave space for viewers to construct their own personal narratives.

I envision an abstract, planar sculpture of painted metal, 8 to 10 feet tall, potentially with multiple elements, occupying a footprint of about 10 x 18 feet on the site. There will be a base of large boulders with integrated seating. The urban fabric and natural beauty of the Roosevelt neighborhood will be framed by perforations in the piece. Crisp organic geometries, curious forms in the neighborhood, will draw visitors to the park. They will be able to seek shade and a space for reflection under the Glacier.

The landscape design will reinforce the glacier concept in many ways by using the vocabulary of glaciation. Large boulders or erratics scattered throughout the park, high alpine valley plantings of grasses and sedum, striation marks and large, sloped drumlin hill shapes will all evoke a glacier’s impact on the landscape.